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December 30, 2012

White Beans with Leeks and Thyme ‘Slow Cooker Friday’ Stew or Soup

That ended up being quite a long title, but the ingredient list is all the shorter to make up for it. And yes, I realize it’s not Friday 😉

Shorter days and all the holiday activity can leave you tired and sleepy. It’s darker earlier and after the hustle and bustle of the holidays most don’t feel like doing as much as on a sunny summer evening. Add to that the weeks of overindulgence that usually lead up to the end of the year, the lethargic feeling that comes with it and you know you really don’t want to cook at all. But luckily to your aid comes the slow cooker! After a long week of work or entertaining, you deserve to come home to a meal that’s good, good for you and won’t break the bank! Prepare in the morning and decide if you want soup or stew on your way home! (Sorry there are no picture of the soup, we were too hungry and it was dark out, but let me tell you, it was yummy)

I used a 2 qt size round cooker for this recipe. Makes 4 servings if you add some Chicken Sausage Patties on the side.

Ingredients

1/2 lb dry white beans ( I have used both baby lima and regular dried lima beans) rinsed
1 cup leeks, white and light green parts only, (from about 2 stalks) cut into rounds and cleaned well*
1 tsp salt
1/2 cube Rapunzel (no salt added) bouillon
3 sprigs thyme
4 cups water
(optional) pancetta or speck as a topping or chicken sausage patties as a side

* Leeks can trap a lot of dirt, so submerge the cut rounds in cold water and move pieces around with your hands, changing the water a couple of times if necessary until no more ‘sand’ collects on the bottom

Here served with a nice slice of 10 grain sourdough for a vegetarian dinner (resuscitate your sourdough starter in the back of the fridge, you will need it for this yummy bread, recipe coming up soon)

Directions

Rinse beans well, then layer into the slow cooker and add 3 cups of water.
Add the cleaned leeks, salt and thyme sprigs.
Turn your slow cooker to high and wait 5-6 hours until beans are fully cooked, adding water if necessary. (On low the recipe will take longer, about 8-9 hours)
When you get home, either serve as is, or add another cup of water and using a hand held blender, puree the beans and leeks until smooth, adding more water if you like a thinner soup.
Cook some chicken sausage patties until nicely browned and serve along the stew or cook a slice or two of Pancetta or Speck, crumble and top your soup with it

December 30, 2012

Chicken Sausage Patties

Sausage can be a mixed bag of tricks. Store bought it often contains a lot of fat with the flavor that we all want. But if you want to control fat and sodium content, blending up your own patties (unless you know of a great source that makes chicken sausage from just breasts) is often the only choice. It’s quick and cheap and oh so versatile! Trim all visible fat from the chicken breast prior to making these.

Ingredients

1 boneless chicken breast half, coarsely chopped (1/2 to 3/4 pounds)
1 egg white
3 tablespoons scallions or onion to taste
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika, sweet
1/4 cup fresh herbs such as parsley
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper pieces, red and green (about 1/4 pepper each)
1 tsp crushed red pepper, (optional, to add some spice)

Directions

Pulse all the ingredients except the peppers in the blender until chopped, but not pasty
Stir in the pepper pieces and using a table spoon, form into 2-3″ patties.
Cook in a hot skillet until cooked through and nicely browned. (Or bake in a 375ºF oven)
Can be made in advance and frozen. When needed just pop in the microwave or defrost and heat in the toaster oven.

Serve as a side with soup or White Bean Stew with Leeks and Thyme

December 26, 2012

Warm Winter Salad

Now that the holidays are coming to a close, and New Years is staring to wave at us with all its new beginnings and good resolutions. Why not indulge in something reminiscent of comfort food, but without the guilty pleasure price tag? This salad is just right for that. Sustaining enough to not leave you looking through the cookie jars in the break room, but nourishing and light at the same time. It’s a salad for those that don’t like salad. Like my one friend that doesn’t see why anyone would want to eat ‘crunchy water’. This would even work for her, a no greens salad!

And of course, where would we be with our healthy living resolutions if it were not going to be convenient? So this one packs neatly into a jar, dressing and all. When ready, just shake, remove the lid and heat up ( I like mine warm), or enjoy cold!

per serving you will need:

Ingredients

1 small sweet potato
3 tbsp chick peas (cooked or canned)
5 small mushrooms, quartered
1/2 small zucchini, diced into cubes
3-4 tsp roasted garlic dressing
2 cup mason jar

Directions

Prick sweet potato with a fork, wrap with 2 paper towels, drizzle some water on the paper towel for moisture and microwave until soft and cooked through. (Alternately use some leftover roasted sweet potato, peeled) Once cool enough to handle, peel and cube and set aside to cool completely.
Heat a teaspoon olive oil in a small skillet, add mushrooms to pan and quick sauté for 1 minute. Set aside to cool. Add zucchini to pan, and sauté for another minute, set aside to cool completely.
Layer ingredients into a 2 cup mason jar in the following order:

creamy roasted garlic dressing
sweet potato
chick peas
zucchini
mushrooms
lid

You can assemble this salad completely and store in your fridge for up to 4 days!

December 14, 2012

Avocado, Sweet Potato & Corn Salad

What’s better than a healthy meal? A healthy meal that’s easy to make, tasty AND portable. Here’s another installment in our ‘lunch salads to go’ series. Assembled in a mason jar, layered so the dressing stays on the bottom until needed. Substantial enough to hold you over until dinner time, and when you mix the avocado with the citrus dressing first, the salad can be prepared ahead and will keep for 3 days in your fridge without turning brown.

Makes 1 two-cup jar

Ingredients

1 tsp minced shallot
1/2 avocado, cubed
1/3 cup sweet potato, cooked, cooled, peeled and cubed
1/4 cup sweet corn (from a ‘no salt added’ can)
2-3 radishes, sliced thinly
4 slices red, hot chili pepper (optional), diced
3-4 tbsp Citrus dressing

Directions

Toss shallots and avocado with the citrus dressing, then layer into the glass jar, followed by sweet potato, the corn, the hot pepper (if using) and finish with the sliced radish.
Store in the fridge until ready to use, then shake the jar until the dressing mixes throughout, use a fork, eat right out of the jar, or invert onto a plate.
Enjoy.

December 14, 2012

Citrus Salad Dressing

wpid-2012-12-09-15.57.50.jpg

Ingredients

1/2 lime, juice only
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
1 pinch to 1/4 tsp salt

Directions

Stir honey and salt into lime juice until dissolved
Stir in mustard, then add he olive oil and stir until well blended

Use on salads, particularly anything with avocado, to keep them from turning brown

December 5, 2012

Thai Beef Salad to go

Last Tuesday it snowed and today it’s 65F! Crazy weather for a 4th of December. If I were back home, I’d be making ‘Grättimännli’ tomorrow, so they are ready for December 6th, and it was a firm plan, but how could I follow through when it is SUMMER outside? So instead I am going to mix things up and post a take along salad recipe. Most folks don’t eat badly because they want to, but because they fail to plan. With this series of recipes I am hoping to help you battle the lunchtime rush and have some healthy options on hand. I was going to start with a winter salad, something that can be warmed up, since I am not a huge salad eater in the winter, but seeing that it is summer today…

You need a two or four cup glass mason jar per serving. The jars seal well, are BPA free, re-usable forever and stack the salad items so the dressing stays away from the more delicate items until you’re ready to eat. For this one I suggest extra greens, beyond what fits the 2 cup jar. So either pack them in a little bag or go for the bigger jar (added weight). Take a fork along, shake it up and eat right out of the jar (bigger jar only), or bring a bowl and you have a fantastic lunch everyone will be eyeing.

Ingredients

Dressing (makes enough for 3 servings)

1 tbsp garlic (about 1 clove), minced
1 tbsp ginger, finely grated
1 tsp dark sweet soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil (this is the oriental kind, it’s dark)
1 tsp sambal oelek
3 tbsp fresh lime juice (about 1 lime)
2-3 tbsp Thai fish sauce ( I prefer tiparos brand)
This will make enough for 2-3 servings

Per Jar you will need:

1/2 cup thinly sliced grilled steak
1/2 medium tomato, cut into wedges
2 tbsp julienned carrot
2 packed cups of greens (spring mix, romaine or anything hardy works well)
some sliced chillies and crushed peanuts as topping (optional)

Directions

Make Dressing: Mix all ingredients in a small bowl and stir until well combined. Store any leftover dressing in the fridge and use within a week.

Then make the jars:

Into each jar layer the ingredients in the following order: the steak, then pour 4-5 tsp of dressing over top, follow with tomato wedges, carrot, and greens.
Top with some chilies if you like to spice up your life and crushed peanuts if desired. Close the lid and store in the fridge until ready to go!

Note: The dressing makes enough for 2-3 servings, so why not make dinner, and a jar for tomorrow? Or have a side salad with dinner and make 2 jars for y’all to take to work.

October 31, 2012December 16, 2017

Santa Fe Chicken Soup

Nothing like a spicy south western soup to warm you up on a chilly day. Specially if you have no electric and you don’t know when it’s coming back. Was hoping to post my pumpkin crêpes-cakes (they are like in between a pancake and a crêpe) but it’s a little easier making soup in the dark (or candle light that is) than making pancakes. Plus it’s kinda okay to have leftovers and eat it a few times without much additional effort. Reheating pancakes without electricity? Not so much.

Since this crazy storm that called itself Sandy came through, the lucky ones have just been out of power, some fared much worse… Since I am usually lucky, I just lost power but am able to keep the freezer stuff alive thanks to my small but potent generator. Kinda silly, but I also have the laptop hooked up right now so I can type this, and to take some of the classes for a certification I am working on, can’t tell you more right now. Soon, I promise. So where was I? Oh, I am saving the pancakes for tomorrow, and I am making some soup!

When everything shuts off, and it’s starting to get cold outside after this storm, having hot soup in your belly makes you happy. No, frankly it’s just because I like soup, a lot, in fact I might be a soup addict, if there is such a thing. But a warm belly should never be underrated, just sayin’. So being trapped inside, I made another soup 🙂 The recipe makes a lot, like for 6 to 8 people, but in this case for one. But it’s so super delicious, I wouldn’t mind eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a few days!

Ingredients

about half a grilled or roasted chicken *
4-6 cups of water
2 big cloves of garlic, minced
2-4 chilies and 1 tbsp sauce from 1 can of ‘chilies in adobo sauce’
2 whole ears of corn (or use about 1 1/2 to 2 cups frozen, canned or fresh kernels)
1 small bag of dark red kidney beans**, frozen (or 1 can, drained and rinsed)
1 tsp salt
2 heaping tbsp pan or masarepa (pre cooked corn meal)
1 can (28 oz) San Marzano tomatoes
lime slices and tortilla chips for serving

*or use 4 cups of good quality chicken stock and some leftover grilled or roasted chicken meat

**I cook my own beans and freeze them in serving size bags for later use. Much cheaper and less sodium than canned and much more flavorful. Also feel free to use black beans to make it more southwestern like I intended, I only had kidney beans left.

Directions

In a large stock pot cover the roasted chicken with water and 1 teaspoon salt, and bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer until the meat starts to fall off the bones. Remove the chicken and set aside to cool.
Add the ears of corn to the hot stock until defrosted, then remove and slice the kernels of, return to the soup. (If using kernels, just add)
Add the beans
In the meantime, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a skillet and cook the garlic until golden, then chop and add the 2 chilies in adobo and the tablespoon of sauce (use more if you’re friends with the devil and like it HOT) and the can of tomatoes and cook until reduced and starting to thicken. Add to the soup pot.
When the chicken is cool enough to handle remove the meat from the bones, chop and return back to the soup
Remove about 1 cup of liquid from soup, set aside to cool slightly then stir the ‘pan’ into it until dissolved and no lumps are left (it will thicken) then stir back into the soup and bring to a simmer. Cook until the soup has slightly thickened, about 3-4 minutes.
Serve garnished with a slice of lime and some tortilla chips on the side.

October 28, 2012December 16, 2017

Herbed Yellow Tomato and Lentil Soup

Finishing my last bowl of soup, I thought it might be time to share this one with you instead of keeping it all to myself. Using the last tomatoes from the garden. Oh no, they have not been out on the vine for a while now. I had to pick them a while back when we were expecting a hard frost, even though they were hard and green as a granny smith apple. But oh wonder, after a couple of weeks, (yes folks, it took that long) they started to turn yellow and even a little red/orange in some spots, I guess because they remembered they were Pineapple tomatoes after all. But knowing that the flavor would not be a sun-ripened version of tomato, I decide soup might be a good bet. And since they are probably less sweet than their sun-ripened cousins, I pondered, maybe creamy would be the way to go? But I also did not want to make it too heavy or rich and full of fat, well I think I struck the balance just right, but judge for yourself. I have eaten the entire pot of soup (serves 4) over the past week, all by myself, there was no sharing here, I admit 😉

By the way, I bet this would be even better with real ripe tomatoes

As I write this, it is very calm outside and very hard to imagine that there is a storm brewing that might outdo last years Halloween Snowstorm. (For those of you not familiar with my area, we don’t usually have snowstorms this early in the year and last year all the leaves where still on the trees, which made the foot of snow into a disaster leaving some of my friends out of power for 2 weeks. I got lucky mine came back on in 2 or 3 days, not too bad, considering. Well this time they are not calling for snow, but a WHOLE LOTTA rain and wind, and for a much longer time) Thank goodness for weather service, or I would have happily packed my bags for a week end hike and ended up blown away 🙁

Instead I might make some more soup tomorrow, and work on one of my little winter projects…

Pretty, right? You can get the pattern from Pam Powers’ website

Ingredients

5 medium counter ripened tomatoes, yellow or red (sun ripened would work too), chopped
1/2 onion, diced
1 rapunzel vegan bouillon cube or 2 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup cottage cheese
1 medium carrot, grated on the coarse side of the grater
1/2 cup Le Puy (french green) lentils
1 red pepper, seeded, peeled and chopped
3 sundried tomatoes, cut into small pieces
2 tbsp pesto
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
water, 2-4 cups

Directions

Heat some oil over medium high in your soup pot, then add the onions and cook until slightly browned in spots, then add the tomatoes. Add salt, pesto and herbs and cook until the tomatoes render their juices (and it all becomes soup-y)
Add the bouillon cube and about 4 cups of water (or 2 cups broth and 2 cups water) and bring to a boil.
Add the rinsed and sorted lentils. Add the sun dried tomatoes. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer and cook until lentils are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
In the meantime cook the bell pepper over the grill until blackened, set aside covered or enclose inside a paper bag, and when cooled enough to handle peel the blackened skin off (rubbing it with a paper towel works pretty well), then chop the roasted pepper and add to the soup
Add the cottage cheese and stir until mostly melted.
When the lentils are cooked, season the soup to taste with black pepper and more salt if desired

October 2, 2012December 16, 2017

Nelson’s Pepper and Mushroom Soup

After watching me make soup a couple of times, Nelson surprised me the other night by making a soup of his own, using what we have, just like I would, he whipped up the most delicious little soup one can imagine! And all from the things that needed to be used up: 2 sad looking zucchini squash, celery, 4 mushrooms leftover from making pizza on Friday, the rest of the pizza sauce, a can of pinto beans, some speck and a lovely misshapen red peppers that were on ‘quick sale’ at the store. Oh, but I wouldn’t do it justice by forgetting the not-all-that-hot looking little hot pepper we got from Dawn’s garden that spiced up the whole pot. It was super awesome! I might be odd, but I had to have some for breakfast today, yes, it was that yummy 🙂

Ingredients

2 tablespoons coconut or olive oil
1 onion chopped
4 big button mushrooms, cut into chunks
3-4 stalk of celery, chopped
1 can Pinto beans, rinsed (or frozen equivalent)
1 small green zucchini
1 small yellow squash
1 8 oz can of tomato sauce (or about 1 cup leftover pizza sauce)
1 red bell pepper or ‘sweet ancient’ (long and funky looking)
1 hot red pepper (cherry or the one we had which looked innocent like a mini bell pepper)
1/4 cup diced Speck (pronounced “Shpek”, German slab bacon, cut into cubes)*
water (which should not be underestimated when making soup)
1 tsp salt
1 no salt added vegan broth cube from Rapunzel

*For vegetarian option, leave the Speck out, but make sure you blacken the red bell pepper, to give the soup some smoky depth.The odd little bag, you ask? Yes, that’s my frozen beans, I soak and cook beans for several meals and freeze them in snack size bags = just about a can of beans

Directions

Heat oil in a soup or stock pot, add the diced onions, celery and sweet red pepper, cook until softened and just starting to brown slightly.
Add the mushrooms and speck and cook just another minute before adding about 4 cups of water, the vegetable bouillon cube and the pizza or tomato sauce. If the beans are frozen, add them at this point.
Bring to a boil and cook until vegetables are tender and the soup gets cloudy looking and thickens a little, then add the finely diced hot pepper
In the meantime, cut the squash lengthwise into spears and chop into pieces, add to the soup and cook for another 5-10 minutes.

Good with Rosemary Soca or corn chips!

September 29, 2012December 16, 2017

Breakfast cups

Breakfast cups or what to do with those leftover fajitas… You know how everything always seems to come in boxes and quantities for a church group? Or at least a family of 8. Well in my case, we currently are a family of 2, sometimes even a family of 1 and most of the packaged things are just too much. I guess we could just resign ourselves to eating the same thing for the next week, twice a day… Are we just that spoiled? Anyone like to eat the same all week? If you have an answer, please do share. As for myself since I don’t like to waste things, I am always looking for different uses for the ‘rest’of the package. Fajita “wraps” are great for just that, you can turn them into desert (brush with butter and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon), or breakfast, they don’t mind one bit 😉

I promise that after this, I will try and not just post breakfast recipes. Actually, I got an awesome one coming up next. Nelson offered to make dinner the other night. And not by buying it at a restaurant (the usual path of this) OMG I can hardly believe it! And he made one of the best soups ever! In fact I had it for breakfast this morning, it was THAT good. But even better than the soup? Shhhht! Don’t tell anyone, I don’t want to break the spell, but Nelson started to want to cook!!!! So now maybe I can stop worrying that I might starve when I am sick sometime or when we have kids down the road, they’ll eat only frozen pizza when I am out. Can’t say it enough, I am so thrilled! So Ladies (and fellas) 😉 there IS hope. And there can be more than one good cook in one household 🙂

But enough gushing, on with the show, just stay tuned for the Pepper & Mushroom Soup, coming up …

Ingredients

per person

2 fajita size tortillas
2 eggs
2 slices of prosciutto or ham (leave out to keep vegetarian)
1/4 cup shredded cheddar
1/4 cup (packed) baby spinach leaves
(optional: a couple of pieces of tomato)

Peppered ham is wonderful too!

Directions

Preheat oven to 375ºF
Using a muffin pan or fluted Madeleine cups on a cookie sheet, form the fajita into it. It is easiest by ‘pleating’ the sides as you go around.
Place the prosciutto into the created cup, followed by the spinach and the cheese. (If you are making the vegetarian option, the cheese goes on the bottom, below the spinach)

Carefully crack one egg into each cup (add a couple of pieces of tomato, if you like), and place in the middle of the pre heated oven
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until eggs are set. ( The ones below I turned the broiler on for a couple of minutes at the end, but wasn’t careful enough=blackened)